Kitsap's weather forecast splitting from Seattle

SEATTLE — Splitting most of Kitsap County off as its own weather zone should facilitate more accurate forecasts, according to the National Weather Service.

The majority of the county is now lumped together with the Seattle metropolitan area in Zone 508. Climate and day-to-day weather observations in downtown Bremerton, as recorded at Fire Station 2, usually match those across the water in Seattle.

As the elevation rises to the west, however, the weather changes. Readings from the Bremerton National Airport weather station are often quite different from those at the fire station. Generally, Bremerton and Vicinity, as the new zone will be called, is cooler, cloudier and wetter during the winter, and more prone to lowland snow than Seattle.

The new Bremerton and Vicinity zone, No. 559, has weather more akin to Shelton, Grapeview and Belfair, but readings won’t be reported with the communities, either. They, along with Kitsap’s western edge, are in the Hood Canal Area zone, No. 511.

Kitsap’s portion of the current zone is far outnumbered by Seattle grid points, tilting the forecast.

“The weight of the areas west and north and south of Bremerton carry less effect right now than they will under the new zone,” said Weather Service meteorologist Josh Smith. “The new zone will be more representative of those areas.”

The existing zone will be dissected by a line straight down Puget Sound and Colvos Passage. The change will take effect on June 12. It’s the first zone change since the 1990s, Smith said.

“We realized a lot of the time the weather over there on the Kitsap Peninsula is different from the weather over here in Seattle and we want to account for that in our zone forecast and provide you better service,” he said. “For us, this is a pretty major change. It only happens every once in a while.”